diseases referred to. I have known three or four cases of death manifestly occurring from the use of blisters under such circumstances.

There is another great inconvenience attendant upon the employment of vesicants composed of cantharides. This is, the absorption of the cantharidine which enters the circulation and proceeds to the urinary organs, giving rise to strangurio, and at times to intense vesical irritation. In relation to the application of Setons cauterics in chronic maladies, I consider them decidedly injurious.

I have often used, myself, (when I practised allopathically,) for months, those torturing means, in diseases of the lungs and brain; but I could never perceive that the patient had derived any benefit from them.

I attended here, a lady labouring for several years under blindness on one eye: (ulcus corneae;) and she wore, for about one year, (according to the advice of hor doctor) at Seton in her neck; the bowels were kept loose by purgativos: local application, as far as I understand, she could not bear. Occasionally she would suffer under the most excruciating pain in the brain. No wonder! the seton has done the mischief! (which it generally does.) I removed it. In about three months time of my treatment, the ulcer was absorbed; the acute pain in the brain ceased. She is well known.

The time is passed when a judicious practitioner can ever think of such a thing as doing any good by a prolonged suppuration.

In irritable, sensitive, or spare persons, with a thin skin, issues, or any other form of external discharge, will not prove of much use, (says Dr. James Clark.*) The irritation and distress which they occasion, more than counterbalance any good effects derived from them. Indeed, counter-irritants of all kinds must be employed with considerable restrictions. Better do away with it entirely. If a counter-irritative should be employed in acute cases, a mustard-plaster answers the purpose just as well.

Ointments, or wash-waters, if they are used with the tendency of curing itch, or other eruptions, are generally composed of the most irritating metallic oxides, such as arsenic, lead, corrosive sublimate of mercury, etc.

A skilful physician scarcely ever makes use of external remedies, because he fears the consequences; but there are others who would do any thing for the sake of a little filthy lucre.

Dr. Ticknor's remarks on this subject merit to be noticed:

Anatomy teaches us that the skin, and lining membranes of the digestive and respiratory organs are similar in structure; and physiology teaches us that they are also analogous in function. We learn, also, from the observations of our predecessors, for ages past, as well as from the facts we daily witness, that a disease commencing in a part of any tissue, is easily propagated throughout its whole

*A treatise on pulmonary consumption, by James Clark,

extent. And therefore, an irritation commencing in the mucous membrane of the stomach or bowels, lungs, or any other of the internal organs, may, as it often does, by this facility of transmission, show itself upon the skin. Again, affections that primarily make their appearance upon the skin are, by the same law, transferred to internal organs; and by a rapid and sudden retrocession, in a short time prove fatal. What mother, or what nurse, has not seen children suddenly die from an affection of the lungs, or of the brain, caused by the sudden suppression of some seemingly trifling cutaneous eruption?*

Many, if not a large majority of the diseases of the skin owe their origin to some derangement of the digestive organs; and while this cause continues to operate, the disease is absolutely invincible, by any safe medical treatment. Those who know nothing fear nothing.

Most of the remedies that are empirically employed in eruptive disease, are such as remove rather than cure; ́repel rather than eradicate; or, in common parlance, they "strike the complaint in.” Such a result is most easily obtained; and from the similarity of structure of the internal mucous membranes to that of the skin, eruptive diseases have almost as great an affinity for the one as the other. When diseases are repelled from the surface of the body,

*What nature sometimes effectuates for man's benefit, the ignorant look upon only as an evil. This is particularly the case with eruptions, so peculiarly adapted to keep the children healthy in the first years of evolution. The mass of people treat their skin as if it were a piece of leather.- Edit

there is no certainty what part they may choose for their location; but one thing is certain, that on the skin they are comparatively free from danger; and that, after they have attacked an internal organ, life is in jeopardy.

The ill effects of a sudden disappearance of disease from the skin show themselves, at different times, from a few minutes to days or weeks. Such variations depend much on the organ which the disease has attacked. If, for instance, it be the lungs, there will be, at first, but a a slight cough, gradually increasing till it terminates in consumption; or, it may speedily produce a bleeding from the lungs,* and run its course much sooner. Again, it may attack the stomach or bowels, producing derangement of digestion, diarrhoea, and the various forms of disease to which those organs are liable, or it may seize upon the brain, producing various shades of insanity, or doing its work much more speedily by terminating in apoplexy.

Any physician of no more than ordinary practice, must have seen many cases of obstinate and severe diseases consequent upon repelled eruption: and he who has experienced it knows full well how to appreciate the difficulty

Ramazzini, Testa, and several others, tell us they have seen hematuria, affections of the heart, and several other serious diseases fellow retrocession of the itch.

I have attended, myself, a gentleman in New York, labouring under spitting of blood and general emaciation. By careful examination, I discovered that the discase existed in consequence of a suppressed itch, through an ointment. By means of homoeopathic remedies, I succeeded to bring the itch back to its former place, and he recovered perfectly.-Edit.

of recalling these affections to their original location. And, indeed, there is no hazard in saying, that the danger and obstinacy of a disease, consequent upon a retrocession of a cutaneous affection, is increased many fold.

(I venture to say, that most chronic maladies, in the United States, proceed either from mercurial abuses, or ill treatment of cutaneous diseases.)

An interesting child of eighteen months old, had an eruption on the face and behind the ears, as is very com mon among children of that age; its mother had importuned her physician to cure it, and he, vory wisely, advised her to be patient, telling her that the change from the hot to the cold season, would probably accomplish what she desired. The mother, however, became impatient-she thought the child's appearance was rendered unpleasant, and less interesting, although its health continued perfectly unimpaired. Contrary to the advice of the physician, and being fully warned of the danger, she procured an ointment, with which she succeeded, to her entire satisfaction, in healing the sores. Scarcely a single day had been allowed her for self-congratulation, before the child. was seized with convulsions, which proved fatal, in a few hours.

A man, somewhat advanced in life, had been, for many years, troubled with an eruption on one of his lower limbs ; he made no complaint of this, only, that it took too much of his time to scratch; and this, in fact, ought not to have

been regarded as much of an evil, since he was in

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